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My oldest just turned 3. The second is 16 months. My children are Romani and on the light-complexioned end of the spectrum at that, which means they are almost indistinguishable from CC at this age. We live in a country where Roma face extreme racism, however, so we don't treat the issue lightly. I am already "arming" my children with a horde of various colored dolls, books with character of various races and a Romani baby sitter/language teacher. There are no "diverse" areas in this country and we rarely get to see other Roma, besides our language teacher. My husband and I discuss Romani culture and race issues in front of the children on a regular basis (average twice a week) because it is a major topic of the news. But we don't usually point out the children when we do so, we are just intensely interested and invested in the issues.
Recently, I noticed that when we read stories with pictures of many children of many colors, my 3-year-old will often pick out a child that is supposed to be her. This is almost always a girl who is far darker than my daughter is in reality. Also, when asked what her doll's name is (she's not really old enough to grasp naming the doll something that she made up), she says any dark-skinned doll (even those that have clearly African features) are her. Any obviously CC doll is a blonde friend of hers. I told the author Kevin Hofmann this and he said her development of a non-white identity is a positive thing. I generally think it is positive as well. She seems to have positive associations with her looks and everyone marvels at how pretty she is, including tons of people who would be shocked if they knew she was Romani.
I am simply intrigued because she is really not that dark. Okay, if you put her arm against your arm there is a difference in shade but it isn't much, certainly not enough to make her think the dark brown doll is her. My husband thinks that she is artificially developing this identity because of how much we talk about the issues. He even worries that we should not discuss the issues in front of the children so much. I disagree but I have to ask myself, how much focus on these issues is too much at this age? Could I be forcing my daughter to think of herself as really different from her CC friends when she doesn't appear that different? The issues are serious for Roma, no matter how CC they look because the issues here are inter-ethnic cultural strife as much as racial tension but still I wonder.
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My 2.5 and 3.5 First Nations (American Indian) daughters do the very same thing. My younger one is very light skinned (almost indistinguishable) but still self identifies with the darker skinned dolls and having brown skin. I also think this is a very good thing for them. They view it as 100% positive at this age -- which is a great start, because real life will infringe soon enough. You are doing a really great job. :)
The little guy is a little over three, and deaf too so he doesn't say it out loud. As mentioned in the Red Tails thread, he likes pilots and planes. When he sees a photo of a black pilot he points to the pilot and then himself. He won't do that if the pilot isn't black.I think it's fantastic and encourage it. My daughter sometimes wonders how when she has kids they could ever be so beautiful with the white skin she has compared to the beautiful chocolate of her little brother :)
Our oldest is three and someone in nursery at church (one of his friends) asked him why he wasn't like his parents. Prior to this, he had noticed the color differences, but it was a fact....nothing personal. This incident upset him a bit, though, because he couldn't be the same color as me. We spent several days dealing with questions and tears and all until I finally thought of something. I had him sit with me on the couch and we ate M&Ms together. I asked him what color each was, and he answered before he got the candy. A little ways into the routine, I bit one in half and asked him what color it was on the inside, and did it for the next one and the next one. Finally we made the connection that color only makes a difference on the outside. On the inside, we are exactly the same.
I know that we will rehash this issue as our two boys grow older, but we'll deal with each question as they come up. We live in a multicultural area and our church has a blend of races, so there's plenty of support I'm sure.
kreitsauce
Our oldest is three and someone in nursery at church (one of his friends) asked him why he wasn't like his parents. Prior to this, he had noticed the color differences, but it was a fact....nothing personal. This incident upset him a bit, though, because he couldn't be the same color as me. We spent several days dealing with questions and tears and all until I finally thought of something. I had him sit with me on the couch and we ate M&Ms together. I asked him what color each was, and he answered before he got the candy. A little ways into the routine, I bit one in half and asked him what color it was on the inside, and did it for the next one and the next one. Finally we made the connection that color only makes a difference on the outside. On the inside, we are exactly the same.
I know that we will rehash this issue as our two boys grow older, but we'll deal with each question as they come up. We live in a multicultural area and our church has a blend of races, so there's plenty of support I'm sure.
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